World’s first all-wood stadium commissioned in England

NAILSWORTH, U.K. – A 5,000 seat stadium, built entirely from timber, has been commissioned for the British soccer club Forest Green Rovers football club.

The stadium will be the focus of a $124 million “Eco Park” development, which totals over 100 acres of space dedicated to sports and green technology. The stadium will be commissioned by London-based architectural firm Zaha Hadid (ZHA), who won a seven-month-long international competition to design the stadium. Over 50 entries from around the world were submitted.

Designed to be the world's greenest football stadium, it will be constructed completely from timber and powered by sustainable energy sources.

"The really standout thing about this stadium is that it's going to be entirely made of wood – the first time that will have been done anywhere in the world," said Forest Green Rovers chairman Dale Vince. “Our new stadium will have the lowest carbon content of any stadium in the world.”

Constructed from slats of timber, the stadium’s undulating, wave-like style was not only selected for aesthetic and design purposes, but acts as an acoustic device to contain crowd noise. Positioning of the seats will be calculated to give spectators completely unobstructed views of the pitch.

Forest Green Rovers says ZHA was awarded the contract based on its designs of previous stadiums, like the London 2012 Olympics Aquatics Centre and its upcoming arena for the 2022 World Cup.

Photos by ZHA

Related Articles

About the Author:

Robert Dalheim

Robert Dalheim is an editor at the Woodworking Network. Along with publishing online news articles, he writes feature stories for the FDMC print publication. He can be reached at robert.dalheim@woodworkingnetwork.com.